The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-02-06
SLAVES OFTHEOPIUM HABIT.
Over Five Hundred Confirmed Users Of
the -Ruinous Drug in This City.
The Number of Victims Of the Habit, However.
Is Believed To Be Decreasing-NeW
Sleep-Producing Medicines.

NIeep-TTOuuclIS MeulCfHeS.
81 do not believe" said DR.. Charles E. Wright
in conversation with Journal reporter, ''there
are as many opium userg in this city as there
were ten years ago." The Doctor has made the
subject of opium using study, and has even
coined a word. 'opiophagy," which the diction-
airy appears to need.
IA great many persons have even quit the use
of opium. In that, of course, include ali prep
aratons from the drug and morphine used
hypodermically, as we'll I know several per
sonally who have done SO. The struggle, of
course, was great but by the exercise of the
will it can be done, and they were successful
New things are coming in to take the place OF
opium. There Is a great deal OF noise made
about cocaine and the cocaine habit The
fact is, we do not yet know much about coca
ine It has not been in use long enough for the
medical profession to have determined whether
it is as dangerous as opium, as some allege or
not. That travelling doctor and his daughter,
whose dreadful conditions were used to show
the horrors attending the cocaine habit, were
not good authority on the subject. They were
both of them opium eaters, and it was not de-
toTulueu now mucu OIL Iu0lf cOnuitlOu WAS W O0
attributed to opium and how much to cocaine.
Il think the use Of sleep producers is increas-
ing. There is a great deal Of choral used by
business men. Formerly the bromides, which
are comparatively harmless, were used. Choral
causes stomach diseases, heart disease, diseases
of the blood vessels nervous affections and skin
troubles. The nervous disturbances, with
tremors often produced by the of choral.
are very serious. really believe it will cause
| insanity and paralysis in some cases. under
stand there is considerable choral used at the
hospital for the insane. It is frequently used in
combination with morphine 1t puts trouble
some patients to sleep, and the doctor gives it
to them in order to get for himself good
nights rest.
LAS to the opium habit, the opiophaeist, or
opium eater, does not frequent the large and
better patronized drug stores The smaller
| shops may dispense ten times as much as the
more pretentous establishments. Opium is to
| be blessed for the good it has wrought 1t is at
once divine and deviish, and has cured more
| and killed more people than any other drug
extant DeQuincy's confessions has made many
opium-eaters. Instead of acting as light
house to warn human craft from the
shoals of opium death, it has, Siren
| like, lured men on to destruction. Pain
ia not easily borne by the educated
and refined, and that which seemed to DeQuncy
| the most appalling irritation in less susceptible
| individuals would probably have created less
+, disturbance. Coeridge took opium for the re-
lief of painful rheumatic affection of the heart,
| and in depicting the pains of opium does not
| forget the tricks of rhetoric. Like DeQuncy,
be was writing book for sale do not think
there are peculiar or distinctive pains attending
| the quitting of the opium habit, and do know
| in my personal experience of the habit having
| been abandoned by persons not specially distin-
| guished by strength of will power.
| Opium eatngls vice of com paratively mod
ern origin. 1t could not have existed during the
middle ages. for the demand did not warran,
L.. -
| ceived for camphor, mama and rhubarb. He
! who studies the opium habit we'll knows the
| bunting OF moral sense which attends it, and i,
! Is almost proverb among druggists to say
| of prevarcator that he lies like an opium
eater In the opium habit the circulating appa
| ratus Is to certain extent parayzed, and the
blood is sent rardily it's life-giving mission
| All the secretions, save that of the skin, are
lessened-in fact, brake appears to be applied
20 the wheels of life, rendering them slower il
| action. The opium eaters skin is clammy, in
deed, he is "a dem'd moist, unpleasant body.
The eye, except in the first stage of the opium
habit, is like that of an old person, dull and lus
treless. The habit is essentially one of secrecy
and is not social vice. The victims pleasures
as afterwards his pains. are his own. He car
not communicate an idea of his peasurable sen
sations to fellow debauchee during the earl,
part of his bondage, nor can he convey an ade
quate idea of the torment which attends the lat
ter part of the slavery. Many persons who US
alcoholic stimulants to excess contract the opium
habit by using the drug to cure the pains follow
ing spurious debauch. Nine years ago mad
as nearly accurate calculation as was possibl
as to the number Of habitua users of opium il
its various forms in this city. My estimate the
was 500, and although our population is nov
larger, do not think the number has increased
i, l spoke of sleep producers that are taking tn
place of opium in its various forms In additio
/ to those / named there two new ones-pal
aldehyde an alcohol product, and wrethan,
coal product. Paraldehyde is recommended i
sleeplessness where there may be heart troubl
which would make the administration of othe
sleep producers dangerous. Wrethan is not 8
well known. 1t produces a natural sleep wit
no nausea. headache or other unpleasant sicl
ness afterward."